Hey Everyone!

Sorry it's been a while since our last blog, free wifi was very scarce on Koh Phangan and we're now in Krabi. So, since we last wrote, we've spent five nights at Pinks Bungalows on Koh Phangan. We arrived at Pinks on Friday. After we'd set down our belongings in our beach FRONT bungalow which was fully equipped with a hammock on the balcony, a fan and private cold-showered ensuite we set out to find a mode of transport that could cope with Koh Phangan's hilly terrain. We jumped in a tuk tuk to Thong Sala and found the PERFECT quad bike, although roughly nine times more expensive than a moped, we managed to get the price down to 550B from 700B per day. We rented it out for three days, donned our helmets and off we went.

Our first destination was Hat Rin, the party town of the island, where we were faced with the road of death - as Sophie named it. It wasn't easy to decide which bit was worse, the steep climb or the steep descent - both were terrifying for Sophie who was clinging onto Kie for dear life! We expected to be a lot more impressed with Hat Rin considering it's home to the famous Full Moon Party and has a lot of tourists there. This may have been due to its pricey menus and the brewing storm which forced us to leave earlier than expected, as we didn't want to do 'Death Road' in the rain. Once it started raining it didn't seem to stop! During the night there was a vigorous storm - the thunder was so powerful it shook our hut! It continued for 24 hours, which meant we spent our second day at the Food Factory - a fast food sports bar which suited Kie perfectly as the Ashes were on TV all day! The bar was a really modern, American-style diner with flat screen TV's throughout, including the toilet which made Kie's day! The rest of the day was a bit of a write-off due to the weather so we ate and returned to our bungalow, only heading out to watch Arsenal which was later cancelled due to snow.

Our third day began with burger and chips at our favourite haunt - Food Factory where Kie watched the Ashes (only to be disappointed!). We left swiftly after the Ashes finished and made our own tour of the island on our quad. We started our adventure in Hat Salaad; a beautiful long stretch of beach with bright blue sea. Unfortunately the waves were so rough that most of the beach was under water and we were relegated to the very edge of the sand, close to the rocks! After a short time sunbathing on the little strip of sand, we decided to get back on the quad and head further north to Mae Had and Koh Ma, a little island joined to Phangan via a sandbar and a very popular snorkelling spot. Unfortunately, though eager to use our brand spanking new kit, the sea was too rough and had little or no visibility. We spent the rest of the day basking in the sun before setting off back to Ban Tai, along the way we spotted a randomly placed roadside animal sanctuary which housed elephants, crocodiles and monkey's. We stopped and played with the animals for half an hour before we once again set off home.

Monday came and, after such a nice day at Mae Had, we thought we'd head back for a second day in the sun and hoped this time we'd be able to snorkel. Unfortunately when we arrived the sea was again pretty rough meaning snorkelling was, once again, out of the question. We stayed until about 2pm as the quad had to be returned by 3pm. We then had to get a tuk tuk back to our hut and spent the rest of the evening chilling before an early night in preparation for the Full Moon Party.

Our last day was spent, again, lounging around the bungalow, packing and getting to know a few of our fellow partiers for the evening. We met a really nice couple, Mike and Amy, who invited us to join them and their friends for the party. We headed towards Hat Rin at 9pm and started at Coral Bungalows where we met their friends (a group of lads from St Ives) after a couple of hours drinking and chatting we made our way to the beach for Full Moon. We spent the night drinking Sangsom whisky buckets, bottles of Singha beer and dancing away to the very loud music, along with the thousands of other revellers. Kie was a MESS. Unfortunately Sophie was too busy holding Kie up to take photographic evidence but she assures you, you would have laughed!

The following day we woke early, far too early in fact and returned to bed until 10am when we were forced to get up to catch our boat which we'd stupidly booked the previous day. We faced a three hour journey followed by a two hour minibus journey to get to Krabi. After a rough day of it, we arrived at Good Dream Guesthouse at 6.30pm and checked out our room which we were pleased by, especially at only 300B per night and includes free wifi and showers with proper hot water (our first for at least three weeks - brr)! Our plan is to chill here today before heading to Koh Phi Phi tomorrow for Christmas!

Hope everyone's ok. Have a great Christmas!

Lots of love Sophie and Kie xx